


Watch Me Crack and Shatter

by ladyofstardvst



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Unresolved Emotional Tension, i am just a humblr trash goblin that likes to write Emotional Suffering, i dont know what this is except bone crushing angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-18 01:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20630543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofstardvst/pseuds/ladyofstardvst
Summary: Heartache is a fickle thing, especially when you're slammed face first into a situation when you have to confront the messy feelings of a breakup no one actually wanted to happen.





	Watch Me Crack and Shatter

**Author's Note:**

> hey hello hi, I don't write for tvd/to usually, but im an impulsive being so here we are!!! it's been a while since I've written anything so it's a bit rocky but we get there in the end. probably. anyway, enjoy!

There were days when you missed him more than your favorite season, your favorite memories, or the air in your lungs when you’ve forgotten how to breathe.

Alternatively, you missed him like you missed how life had been _before_ he was apart of it.

Calm. Uneventful. Normal.

Because the thing about the Mikaelson family, was simply this: there was _before_, and there was _after_.

There were days when nostalgia stole the best of you. It would square it’s shoulders and accept the challenge. Took all your thoughts and feelings, twisted them around in your head, in your heart, around and around your rib cage, your organs, then finally, finished by fusing with your blood. It painted a rosy glow over the last few years, made the darkest aspects muddy, made the questionable details seem irrelevant and isolated. It took what you knew, what you loved, what you longed to forget and _warped it_ so it seemed . . . _different_. Worth missing. Worth wasting the energy yearning to have everything how it had been _afte__r_, despite knowing it was not the greatest idea you’ve ever had.

On those insufferable days, you wanted him _back_.

At first, you wondered if it was a trick your eyes had played on you, something your mind made up to still the storm raging in your chest, the one that threatened to drown every impulse, every cohesive thought and everything holding you _together_ – until no, you realized, you _weren’t_ hallucinating.

Had you wished this into existence?

A silhouette, one all too familiar shifted into your line of sight, like a phantom beckoning you to follow. (_Come closer_, they would whisper - and you listened, because you weren’t entirely positive this was real.) The others amongst you inside the crowded bar of St. James obscured Kol Mikaelson from your vision for a few moments, and you’re _grateful_.

Everything hit you like a ton of bricks, like you’ve been lifted off of your feet with gravity degrading faster and faster and _faster _while you’re still trying to stand on solid ground. A wave of raw, undiluted emotion wrapped scalding, spidery fingers around every nerve, every tendon, every artery and clenched it’s fist, leaving you gasping for air. You swore your heart stopped. You swore the blood froze in your veins and your lungs collapsed because you could not gain a single breath for an eternity.

All those days you felt like an empty shell, and _now_, well -

That was all you could think about.

It was too much.

So you left.

The alley outside welcomed you with open arms, darkness swallowed you whole as you felt the buzzing magic of the disruption spell slide _through_ you and glide over your skin. Chilled air kissed your face, your hands, your neck, tugged at your clothes and flooded oh, so sharply down your throat and filtered through your lungs.

You walked along cobblestones, fingers trailing across century old brick and mortar uneven and crumbling with age. Every single feeling you ever had settled down on your shoulders like a fog. Like an old friend. You had been caught off guard that night, and you weren’t happy about it. It was impossible to decide which way was up, which way pointed to the path that led you back into yourself, because _honestly_ – when had it ever been a good idea to see an ex when you’re undergoing a phase of messy thoughts and candy-coated memories?

“Leaving without saying hello?”

You stopped immediately, shoes scuffed on the old stone. You hadn’t even made it to the end of the block.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he continued, voice closer than the moment before. The tone of his voice was even and welcoming and . . . grim.

No words could escape your throat, not gracefully, but your feet – thank god they did _something_. You faced him in a second, not entirely sure what mask you wore, and not really caring. You deserved a moment or two to be _real_.

“I wasn’t -” you began, words uneven and the farthest from steady. “Okay, yeah, maybe I _was_.”

He nodded, eyes downcast, ghost of a smile tainted his lips. Both of you watched his boots kick at grooves in the cobble, then shuffled a few steps closer. There was maybe ten feet of separation.

_Danger_.

“You can’t _blame_ me.” you continued, finding a way to shake the uncertainty, shake your tells from your voice.

“Never,” he said, no beat missed. “I made it _easy_ for you to leave. We all did.”

_Do not cross._

You played with a chip on the brick at your side, looked at him as you inhaled a deep breath of sharp, midnight air.

“And yet I feel worse off for doing so.”

_You crossed._

Kol hesitated; a rare and fleeting moment of indecision and confusion. The shine of the stars above you cast enough light to see the shift in his expression: eyebrows pulled together, lips tugged down. Eyes changed from his playful default to a twinge of guilt and sadness that reminded you of the those levees in the city that broke all those years ago.

It was swift, and he was sincere.

He still _cared_, you realized. About you, about letting you _out_ of that kind of life.

_(It didn’t surprise anyone.)_

“That wasn’t what I thought you would say.”

The shift in his voice was subtle. You wouldn’t have caught it if you hadn’t spent the last few moments, months, _years_, with him. If you hadn’t spent all that time in _love_ with him, like he was still so very clearly taken with you.

Your heart constricted once, twice, _thrice_, and then it - it stopped.

A pause broke conversation. The wind rushed between you, around you. Suddenly you were two steps closer, unsure of who moved first.

“What did you think I would say?” every vague emotion broke through the tide that held you back, crested every wave that threatened to keep you down. “That I was _happier_? That everything magically fell into place and _improved,_ just because I didn’t _see_ you everyday? Because your family was finally _leaving me_ _alone_?”

You shook your head then, fingers hooked around each other behind your back. Your eyes met his, and you waited for a reply.

He didn’t know what to say.

For once in one thousand years of wretched existence, Kol Mikaelson had nothing to say.

So he stood there across from you, wished he could end the distance between – both physically, emotionally – and _kiss_ you.

_Danger_

He figured you would knee him in the balls again.

So he stayed, feet planted to stone, hands hiding in pockets and eyes locked onto yours.

“I just -” he started, stopped. Risked a step closer. When you made no move to shy away, he stepped closer still. The wind kicked up, slid over his skin and ruffled his hair.

_Do Not Cross_

Your heart began beating again, hammered against your rib cage so violently you waited for bones to shatter.

“You can still be honest with me,” you said. Your voice had become quiet, exposed.

Silence threatened to consume you alive, body and soul. Being ready for what he would say – what you _knew_ he would say – wasn’t in the stars for either of you, but this . . . _well_. This was a long time coming, and it was very clear that the universe, that this city, wouldn’t let either of you run any more.

You were, after all, the poster children for a Shakespearean Tragedy. And you learned early on, that if there’s one thing the universe loved, it was a tragedy.

_Kol crossed._

“Losing you _broke_ me,” he said at last, eyes locked onto yours, both of your faces fallen into shadow and months of melancholy.

_There’s a line around here somewhere_, you knew that much. Your eyes wandered up to the black sky above; an expanse of darkness spread so far, so vast, yet littered with so much beauty, so much _possibility_. The waxing crescent moon shimmered behind a haze of clouds, obscuring the light able to glimpse this little exchange from above.

It clawed your heart in a vice.

“Part of me didn’t think you would actually leave. And then you did -” Kol hesitated over his thoughts, too many wanted to be noticed at once. “And then you did. I never saw you again.”

His apology came next, and this is exactly what your heartache had shown you.

It remembered the good things, the harmless ascent into happiness, the wholesome safety and pure intentions when it was just the two of you. Toxic family excluded.

You crossed the line you knew was there, but couldn’t see. You washed it from existence when you took that last fateful step and pulled him into the searing kiss he’d been dying to take.

You weren’t one for repeating mistakes, for placing your happiness or life in the hands of others. You didn’t need anyone else to be whole, or complete. _That’s not what this was. _This one time, however - maybe nostalgia had been the universe steering you toward your chosen ending after all.

A whisper of truth brushed across your lips, with the words dripping syrupy sweet: “I love you.”


End file.
